East Ferry wharf owner active in slave trade
To this day, Jamestown residents continue a centuries-long tradition of crossing the East Passage to shop in Newport. Today, a bridge facilitates what was once a precarious voyage on a sailing ferry.
In 1800, residents boarded Freeman Mayberry’s sailing ferry from Clarke’s Wharf in Jamestown (East Ferry) to Ellery’s Wharf in Newport (Storer Park). There, at Mayberry’s store, they could find “martinico molasses” by the hogshead, “New-England rum” and “10,000 weight of good cheese” as advertised in the Newport Mercury.
Mayberry dominated the Jamestown trade and was an intrepid, unscrupulous mariner. He shipped molasses from Cuba to Newport, cheese and hay from Jamestown to Charleston, and human captives from Mozambique to Montevideo, Uruguay.
Mayberry, born in Taunton, Mass., moved in 1790 to bustling Newport as a sea captain, supplying southern ports in the “coasting trade.” In 1799, he purchased Newport’s Ellery Wharf with its ferryboats, stores, house and gardens on the exclusive waterfront for $27,000. Three years later, he purchased the opposite terminus, Clarke’s Wharf in Jamestown, for $1,600. That included the pier, ferryboat and more than an acre of land.
In an admiralty court case, he intimated the origin of his wealth. Prior to purchasing the ferries, he sailed his brig, Orange, on a voyage to the coast of Africa “for the purpose of purchasing Slaves.” He arrived at Guinea, where they purchased and took onboard 120 slaves, then proceeded to Havana, Cuba.
On the journey “nothing remarkable occurred except the death of one slave” until they ran aground on a reef in the Bahamas. All 119 slaves were sold. Cuba’s slave price of $400 per person would have yielded $47,600 to Freeman.
However, Mayberry’s testimony that “nothing remarkable occurred” on the voyage was false. He was stopped and boarded by U.S. Customs for violating the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which prohibited outfitting slave voyages in the United States.
At sea, however, they could not prove any act occurred in the country so customs officials notified the Newport office to seize the vessel when it landed. Before they could do so, Mayberry arranged for the crew to sue him for unpaid wages, and a judge condemned the vessel, selling it to pay for wages. The government belatedly pursued the case but lost in court. Mayberry’s case set a legal precedent, making seizing property in the slave trade difficult.
Mayberry went on to captain six slave voyages, carrying about 1,200 captives into slavery in the Americas.
After enriching himself while eluding the Slave Trade Act, he purchased the Newport and Jamestown ferries with the proceeds. In 1800, he sailed his brig, Peggy, with another Newport captain, Philip Morse Topham, to Africa, buying 150 more captives. The return voyage was catastrophic, with half the captives dying, likely of disease. He sold the survivors in St. Barts and Cuba and sold the brig to preclude a seizure by customs.
Topham, however, was arrested upon arrival in New York for violating the Slave Trade Act. The New York Manumission Society discovered the details of the voyage, aiding in the state’s first successful prosecution. Topham was fined $16,000 and imprisoned for two years for inability to pay. He eventually was pardoned by President Thomas Jefferson.
Mayberry escaped responsibility entirely, but the co-owners of his vessel sued him to recoup their fair share of the voyage profits. He won in a precedent-setting U.S. Supreme Court decision by Justice Joseph Story. Mayberry’s watershed case was won because, Story wrote, a contract “founded in illegality, will not protect the parties.” Story castigated all the parties for “a most odious and horrible traffic, contrary to the plainest principles of natural justice and humanity.” Story would in 1841 free the slaves of the infamous ship Amistad.
Undaunted, Mayberry forged ahead with slave voyages to Mozambique, delivering 750 more captives to Cuban sugar plantations and to Montevideo. Those slaves were then marched over the Andes mountains to Chilean and Peruvian mines.
In 1806, Mayberry finally abandoned his Jamestown ferry business, selling it to ferryman Thomas Congdon. He only abandoned the slave trade when the U.S. banned the importation of slaves in 1807.
Mayberry returned to the coasting trade in southern ports. His enemy, the customs officer, caught him loading a vessel one night to evade inspection and seized his vessel and cargo for smuggling. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall freed his cargo, saying only vessels could be seized. He made the customs officer pay court costs.
Mayberry died in 1819 and was buried in Newport Common Burial Ground.
